


Personal

by MissTangle



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Abduction, Established Relationship, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I've given up pretending I'm not just writing straight up Benthan, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 19:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16645997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissTangle/pseuds/MissTangle
Summary: A mission gone wrong leads to Benji's abduction. Ethan and the team have to find him before it's too late.





	Personal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ruthc93](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruthc93/gifts).



> Hello all! Sorry this isn't another Whumptober prompt. I've been having a bit of a struggle writing good quality stuff lately. Everything I've written has just sounded strange to me recently. But this seems to have kicked me back into shape, so hopefully I'll have more up soon! Anyway, this was requested by my wonderful friend @ineverhadadoubt on tumblr from the Hurt Meme, using the prompt "Who the hell did this to you?" You can find the Hurt Meme and the tumblr crosspost on my blog @misstangle!

To say that things had gone spectacularly wrong would be an understatement.

Hadn’t Benji said he’d had a bad feeling about this mission? Hadn’t Ethan learned by now that Benji was usually right about these things? And yet Ethan had still brushed aside his worries with a little reassurance, and now Benji was paying the price.

Ethan just hoped that the price wouldn’t be too great.

They’d been on their way out, their task accomplished with only a few hiccups here and there, and Ethan had flashed Benji an I-told-you-so smile seconds before they were ambushed by an unknown third party. Their assailants had the element of surprise, catching Ethan off guard, landing a blow to his head that left him disoriented and struggling to fight back. He didn’t have to struggle long, though, because whoever had jumped them disappeared nearly as quickly as they’d attacked.

It took Ethan a moment to regain his bearings, blinking forcefully as he tried to get his vision to clear and his feet to steady under him. It didn’t take him long to notice what was missing.

Not just the files they’d been sent to retrieve, but Benji with them.

Ethan took off running, furiously tapping his comms as he tried to reach out to the rest of the team. He wasn’t sure where he was running to, but he hoped that if he made it out of the building fast enough, maybe he’d be able to catch whoever had grabbed Benji before they could escape. His comms crackled, and Luther’s voice cut in. “Ethan, what’s wrong?”

“Someone was waiting for us.” Ethan shot out of the building and stopped abruptly, searching the crowd outside for anyone, anything suspicious. “They took Benji. And the files.”

“Are you following them?”

Ethan turned in a circle, searching, searching. “No.” None of these people looked out of place. Nothing stuck out to him. “No. I lost them.” His heart squeezed painfully. “I lost him.”

Again.

~~~

It took them two days to get a lead. Two days of Luther scouring security cam footage and doing God knows whatever else he could do to find Benji. Two days of Brandt pulling every string he could, reaching out to every contact he had, compiling resources, information, anything. Two days of Ethan running on nothing but coffee and hope, checking over Luther’s shoulder every five minutes like clockwork, kicking himself for letting this happen.

Two days of not knowing if Benji was even still alive.

Ethan was just grateful that the IMF was still willing to help them this time around. Granted, it was only due to their interest in recovering the stolen files, but at least it gave the team the chance to find Benji before he was disavowed. Ethan didn’t know if they would’ve been able to find him fast enough on their own. He didn’t even know for sure if this had been fast enough.

The team was off almost as soon as they had their lead, game plan in place, every detail checked and triple checked. Nothing could go wrong this time. The stakes were too high.

They made their way to the location they’d found, an old abandoned factory on the outskirts of a smaller city. Under the cover of night, Ethan and Brandt set about their infiltration, sweeping the building one floor at a time. They found nothing until they reached the third floor, where the only sign of occupation was some papers strewn about the floor, most of them inconsequential.

“Looks like they’ve cleared out,” Brandt muttered quietly, rummaging through some of the papers. “And in a hurry, too. Must’ve known we were coming.”

Ethan’s stomach twisted. He didn’t like the implications of that. They’d surely been too careful to give away their approach. And if whoever these people were had left…

No. Ethan couldn’t let himself think that. Not even for a second.

“Come on,” he called to Brandt. “Let’s see if we can find anything else.”

The remaining floors above them were just as empty as the first two. A sick feeling settled in Ethan’s heart. He couldn’t give up, though. Not yet. Mustering what hope he had left, Ethan lead the way to the the first sublevel.

That’s when they found him.

Broken and battered on the floor, a few feet away from an upset chair he’d clearly recently been tied to, completely and utterly motionless, was Benji.

Ethan didn’t even check the room first. There was only one thing on his mind, and that was making sure that Benji was alive. He darted into the room and dropped to his knees next to Benji’s crumpled form, trying to ignore the smears of blood on the floor, calling Benji’s name softly. He carefully rolled Benji onto his back, sending up prayers to every deity he could think of, praying for Benji to wake up.

And then, agonizingly slowly, Benji opened his eyes.

“Thank god.” Ethan let out a sigh of relief. “You’re okay now, Benji, okay? We’ve got you.”

“Ethan?” Benji’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Yeah, Benji, it’s me.” Now secure in the knowledge that Benji was alive for the moment, Ethan surveyed the damage, needing to make sure he’d stay alive. His injuries were brutal, almost too hard for Ethan to look at, but none of them seemed immediately life-threatening. Ethan carefully gathered Benji into his arms, feeling Benji begin to tremble with what little strength he had left. Benji unsteadily reached a hand to grab hold of Ethan’s shirt, tears in his eyes as Ethan pulled him against his shoulder.

“Benji.” Ethan’s voice shook with sadness and a rage he could barely keep in check. “Who the hell did this to you?”

Benji didn’t answer. Ethan doubted he had the strength to. He barely had the strength to cry there against Ethan’s shoulder, trembling weakly in his arms. Ethan could feel his eyes burning, too. He’d never seen Benji like this, even after everything he’d gone through. Only Benji’s nightmares had resulted in a reaction anywhere close to this, but even those tearful nights paled in comparison, when all Benji had to do was roll over to find himself wrapped in Ethan’s arms, able to talk through every pain his mind inflicted upon him. Ethan couldn’t bare to think about what Benji must have gone through in the two days since he’d been taken, what could have happened to break him this badly.

Ethan slowly stood up, Benji curled up in his arms, and nodded to Brandt, who’d been standing a respectful distance away to give the two some space. “Let’s get out of here.”

He was going to find whoever was responsible for this. That much was certain. This was no longer about finding those damned files. No, it had really stopped being about that a long time ago, but now it didn’t even matter to Ethan in the slightest.

This was purely personal now.


End file.
